Why exactly I wrote this I have forgotten, it's been a few months since I finished reading Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. But it really hits you, the novel, despite the multitude of references, cross-references, obscurities. The plot is brilliant, as is the Plan. Terrifyingly so. It's a scary book, especially if you are like me, and like your regular little dose of fiction. If you must read it, go ahead. But I really don't know if it's worth the trouble with the Templars, the Rosicrusians and the workings of Garamond. The milieu is just as specific as the plot is universal.
Incidentally, I picked up this book because the title had been eyeing me (not, I don't mean it the other way round. Haven't you ever felt a book or painting or song follow you?). As it turned out, Foucault was not, as I had imagined, Michel Foucault, but Léon Foucault. So fortuitous incidents sometimes backfire. So much for instinctively buying a book. Instinct was so awry this time that I bought it at Midland [South Extension-I, New Delhi. Opposite the bhelpuri-juice wala], one of my preferred bookstores (they always have a discount on pretty much everything in the shop) for just over 200 bucks, only to find the same edition, no less pirated-looking, in Daryaganj [Sunday pavement book bazaar in Old Delhi.] for 60 a few weeks later.
He's like Belbo. Abulafia was his own child. His child took over his mind. Aglie and all the rest, the taxidermist Salon, everyone - they're all Abulafia's children, descendents of his own mind. If they hadn't killed him he would have killed himself. Hell, he is killing himself, by spawning all these little incubated creatures.
The Plan's going to kill him. Amparo's left. She couldn't come to terms with her own feelings. She didn't know whether she belonged or she didn't. No one handed her an agogo. What had happened was her own personal problem. That's why I left. I had to deal with things on my own. If he kills himself, I can't do anything from here anyway.
If even the Thing couldn't keep him, what's the use of this thing I thought we had made together.
I am everyone. Amparo, confused; the Diabolicals, convinced; Casaubon, incomplete; Diatollevi, dying, spewing shit even then, Lia. Lia, Lia. Shining like an inelegant wet-nurse.
Jesus.
I think I just might go buy The Name of the Rose as well. The thing is, if it's not so important to remember detail, this book is remember-ed and -able.
Mind F*** of a novel.
There's that thing written on my wall in my ex-room in the hostel:
Universality is a function of ignorance.
When you know only a few chords, every song sounds like the last.
No comments:
Post a Comment